


Hands and Feet

by itishawkeye



Series: head, shoulders, knees, and toes... [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Brotherly Love, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Tarsus IV, descriptions of genocide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:13:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4650078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itishawkeye/pseuds/itishawkeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Kirk leaves home at fourteen. He doesn't just run away with nothing but the clothes on his back and the small amount of credits he's saved up; he's smarter than that. There's only one hitch in this plan- Jim.<br/>(They say brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands and Feet

They say brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.

__

 

Sam Kirk leaves home at fourteen. He doesn't just run away with nothing but the clothes on his back and the small amount of credits he's saved up; he's smarter than that. His plan is a year in the making. He's got good grades: school has always come easily to him. He applies to boarding schools, applies for scholarships, sends the forms to mom to be signed and tells her they're for school. (He knows she won't read them, and he's right.) She irritably asks why Frank couldn't just sign them when they next comm, but he just makes up something about needing both signatures. It's never mentioned again. Sam runs to check the mail everyday after school and prays he will get there first. He hides all the letters he gets in the floorboard he prided loose with his pocket knife. He gets accepted to a school with a great biology program on one of the Mars colonies. He's leaving at the end of the summer.

There's only one hitch in this plan- Jim. His brother is eleven and already itching for the stars. Sam knows that Iowa is not and never has been enough for Jim. Sam wishes to God that Jim could escape with him. (Jim is all he's had since he lost his dad. He's all Jim's ever had.)

Sam almost can't bring himself to leave Jim. But then he thinks of red faced, spit flying, noise complaint level screaming matches and long sleeves in hot weather and he knows he has to. He won't survive it here. (But Jim can. Jim knows when to shut his mouth, can tell when Frank is gonna snap. He's smart enough to fade into the background when he needs to.) 

So when the end of August comes and it's impossible for him to put off any longer he waits until well past midnight (when he knows for sure Frank will have passed out drunk) to shake Jimmy awake. 

Jim blinks blearily at him and groans but follows him out the window and into the corn field without question. They lay down and stare up the stars through the corn stalks like they have a hundred times before. (He can remember being ten years old and laying in this exact spot as he explained to Jimmy exactly who their father was and what happened to him. He remembers Jimmy's tearful question "Is that why Mom hates me?") The stars are beautiful today. There's not a cloud in the sky.

"I'm going away," He whispers eventually. "Got accepted to a school on Mars."

"What?" Jim whispers back, not turning his face away from the sky. "Mom will never agree to that."

"She already did," Sam explains. "She just doesn't know it yet. I sent her the form with a request to sign and she didn't even read them."

Jim looks at him then. The only light here is from the moon (it's waxing tonight, about half moon.) His eyes are wide and shining with tears. He tries to blink them away. "Y-you're leaving?" He stutters. 

"I'm sorry," Sam says. "I'm so sorry. I can't stay here, Jim. I can't be a Kirk here. I'm not like you. I won't survive."

"Shut up," Jim almost growls, and Sam can hear the tears he's trying to keep out of his voice.

And then he's up and running and Sam... Sam doesn't follow him.

___

 

He doesn't hear about the car until one of his old friends casually mentions it during a message. (At least he's not as crazy as your kid brother. Driving a car off a cliff.) He and Jim had kept up sporadic communication throughout the school year. Jim looks fine and he tells Sam about how school is boring and how he's spending the time after school at the shipyard helping the engineers. Sam tells Jim about his crazy advanced algebra teacher and they laugh together when Sam tell him about his new friends' antics. Sam's ready to enter his sophomore year and everything is going great.

Everything is fine. 

But then, no one told him about the god damn car. 

He comms his Mom even though he knows it's gamma shift and she's probably fast asleep. When she answers, she glares at him with sleep-heavy eyes, but she doesn't yell and hang up. It must be obvious how angry he is. 

"Jim drove a car off a cliff?" He demands and she blinks at him in confusion.

"That was months ago," She says, like he should know.

"Well nobody told me!" He cries, feeling red hot anger rise from his stomach. Jim drove a car off a cliff.

"He was fine, Sam. And it's all been taken care of." She says. She's completely unaffected by his anger, eyes cold and voice bored.

"He could have died," Sam snaps. "He should have died! God, did it ever occur to you that maybe he was trying to drive himself off that cliff?" 

Winona's raises her eyebrows and looks and him like he's just said the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard. 

"Of course he wasn't. He jumped out," She dismisses. 

Sam's hands ball into fists of their own accord, he snaps his head up to meet his mother's eyes, and she almost looks startled at the rage that lays within them. 

"That doesn't mean the intent wasn't there," He growls, voice low.

Winona considers the implications of his words, and for a moment, he swears he sees guilt in her eyes. But it's replaced again by the uncaring cold look he's known to be there since he was four years old in a blink. 

"Well, it doesn't matter now. He's leaving next week. Your Aunt and Uncle will take care of him if anything is wrong."

"Leaving?" Sam demands. 

"To the colony? Didn't he tell you?" Winona says, unfazed. 

"No!"

"Aunt Millie is taking him to Tarsus IV with her. It'll be good for him. Get him out of Frank's hair," Winona says, like she's reciting a speech at a press statement. 

And that... That's the last straw. Sam hangs up so his mom won't see him punch the wall. How could he have not known? He was supposed to take care of Jim! 

He tells the computer to comm Jim with a shaky voice. (It's 11pm in Iowa and there's a good chance he is up.) Jim doesn't answer so Sam calls him again. Jim answers after the fifth call. The room is dark and Sam can just make out Jim's features in the moonlight streaming through the window. 

"Is something wrong?" Jim whispers.

"You tell me," Sam replies, slightly more aggressively then he meant to. He probably should have let himself calm down before making this call.

Jim shakes his head slightly, and even through the darkness Sam can tell he's confused and worried.

"Well, I'm fine," Jim says, finally.

Sam sighs. "I know about the car, Jim."

Jim freezes, his whole body tensing up all at once. "What about it?" He challenges.

"You could have died, Jim! And now your leaving for some distant colony? What were you thinking?" 

"What do you care?" Jim whisper yells. "You left me here! Why do you even care what happens to me now?"

"Of course I care, Jim. I left because I had to. I didn't want to leave you behind! But Frank..."

"Yeah, Frank. You spout all this bullshit about how you care about but you left me here with him!" Jim rants. He leans closer to the screen, and the illumination allows Sam to see not only the anger contorting Jim's features but the bruise below his eye. Sam feels his stomach lurch. 

"I... I thought he would leave you alone. With me gone. I thought you would be fine," The words spill out of Sam's mouth in a shocked, too fast mess. 

Jim's gaze softens slightly, but his face is still hard. "Guess you were wrong."

The screen goes dark when Jim hangs up and Sam is left shocked and staring at his reflection in the black screen with Jim's hard words echoing in his head.

This is his fault. He was wrong, and Jim paid the price. He did this. Sam curls his fingers back together and punches at his own reflection.

__

 

Two years pass with no word from Jim. He knows that Jim went to Tarsus IV and that it's too far out of range for vid comms but somehow it still stings. He turns eighteen a month into his senior year and his mother sends actually sends him a comm with congratulations. It's all he's heard from her since the night he yelled at her for Jim. He's surprised she even remembered.

He's walking back to his dorm from class when he finds out. A girl, Aurelan (the one with the beautiful eyes that he might flirt with sometimes, okay a lot), from his advanced ecology class comes running up to him in the courtyard, and there are tears in her eyes.

"Sam, Sam," She gulped. "Did you hear about Tarsus IV? There's been a genocide! I know your little brother is on a colony, but I couldn't remember which one..."

But Sam is already running across the courtyard from the words Tarsus IV, heading toward the nearest TV. He goes to the cafeteria, and there is already a crowd gathered around it. Some of them are crying, and their sobs are the only sound in the room other than the newscaster's stern yet sorrow-filled voice.

"-genocide on Tarsus IV. There's an estimated 4,000 dead, half the colonies population. It's unclear now what exactly prompted this tragic and horrific turn of events, but early reports indicate that some sort of famine took place..."

There's images flashing of destroyed crop fields, an obviously contaminated river, emancipated people being lead away by Starfleet personal. Sam feels sick. He searched the vids for a familiar mop of blonde hair desperately, but the images of chaos on Tarsus right now are too fast and he can feel the panic building in his chest, growing with every dead-eyed survivor he sees.

Aurelan has caught up with him and Sam feels her hand on his shoulder and it helps, really. She's still crying, and he can feel her chest heave with her sorrow, but her presence helps because he feels like he at least his doing this alone. He wraps his arm around her and pulls her closer.

He turns toward  Aurelan and whispers with a quavering voice "Are there survivor lists yet?"

The ones they find are still incomplete, and Sam's mother will not answer his comms. He even comms Frank, but all he gets is "why do I care if that brat is alive?"

So Sam cries, and  Aurelan holds his hand and tries to comm Winona again. There's nothing. For hours there's nothing and Sam just clutches his phone like a life line and tries to convince himself his little brother isn't dead. Finally, his comm rings, and it's not his mother, it's Starfleet Medical.

"Sam Kirk? We have a James Kirk here and his mother wishes to defer his power of attorney to you." The woman on the phone speaks with a rushed and clipped tone and Sam would be offended if he wasn't sure that she was very busy at the moment.

"Yes! Yes, is he okay?" Sam stammers out, relief spreading through his whole body as the tension begins to drain from his muscles.

"He is currently stable but it will be a long recovery. He will need support,"

"Where is he?"

"He is being transported to the Starfleet Hospital in San Francisco, California, on Earth. We will arrive there in two hours."

"Okay, I can be there in two hours," Sam replies. 

"Okay, tell the nurse at the main station who you are when you get there, and they will help you." 

The comm ends without a goodbye or a chance for him to ask anymore questions, and he stares at in blankly for a moment. He turns toward Aurelan and she's watching him with worried eyes and God Sam is grateful for her right now. She stuck around even though he barley knows her and he definitely needed someone. She squeezes Sam's hand and he leans into her for a hug. 

"He's alive," Sam says. "He's alive."

__

 

Sam arrives in San Francisco twenty minutes late and he spends the whole time the shuttle sits on the dock delayed practically ripping out his hair. One of the women on the transport is crying. (There are crying people everyone and Sam wants to tell them to shut up because they don't even know. Sam knows it's unfair but his fourteen year old brother just went through a genocide and that's more unfair.) 

"I can't believe it," She sobs. "Who would do something like that?"

There's another woman, a much gruffer looking woman, sitting in the corner with her arms crossed. She eyes the woman disdainfully and says "It's happened before and it will happen again, chica. The world is fucked up and history will always repeat itself. No use crying over spilled milk."

Sam has to restrain himself from opening his mouth because his brother is not fucking spilled milk. But he can't get into a fight right now. Right now, his brother needs him.

He finally gets to San Francisco and races to the hospital. It's swamped, and there are people running everywhere. The nurse at the station tells him there are over six hundred people who need treatment right now, and that Starfleet may be having a little bit of trouble coping with it. Thankfully, he is heading in the same direction as Sam, and he shows Sam the room where Jim is right now. It's probably only meant for two people, but there are four beds crammed in the space. They are all kids, and they all look skeletal. Sam spots Jim immediately, sitting up in the bed in the farthest corner of the room, and runs straight for him. He can see Jim's cheekbones, clearly defined in a way that just looks wrong on a fourteen year old and there are large dark circles underneath his eyes. He's hooked up to an IV, and Sam can see white bandages poking out from underneath his hospital gown. 

Sam hugs him and tries to ignore how thin Jim feels against him. 

"Sam?" Jim asks. His voice is scratchy and weighed down. 

"Yeah, I'm here," Sam says. 

"I thought I would never see you again," Jim rasps, and Sam's heart breaks a little more.

"Me too," Sam admits. "But I'm not leaving again, Jim."

"Where is Winona?" Jim questions, and Sam knows he means 'do I have to go back there after all this?'

"She's not coming," Sam answers, and it should sound sad but it sounds more like a promise. "She gave me power of attorney. I'm eighteen, now. I can take care of you." 

"I don't need someone to take care of me," Jim says and that hurts because Jim is only fourteen. (And yeah, that's the age Sam left home but now it seems so young.)   

"Well, you're not getting rid of me that easily," Sam says.

"It wasn't that hard before," Jim replies and his voice is full of venom and it kind of shocks Sam. 

"I know I fucked up, Jim," Sam tries. "But I'm older now and I want to help you. I know I've been a shitty brother but please, let me be a good one now." 

Jim doesn't say anything, but Sam counts it as a win because at least Jim isn't telling him to get the hell out. 

"Jimmy?" says one of the boys in the other hospital bed. He's younger, maybe six or seven and he's staring at Sam with huge and distrustful eyes. "Is it okay?" 

"Yeah, Kevin, it's okay."

The little boy looks relieved and Sam gets the feeling that something just happened he doesn't really understand.

Then the doctor comes in and starts telling Sam about his brother's injuries.

Obviously, the malnutrition, dehydration, and exhaustion had taken quite a toll on his body. They had had to replace one of his kidneys. There had been infected lacerations on his back, and burns on his shoulder and arms. But, Jim would make a full recovery. In a couple of days, Jim could start eating real food again. 

Jim sighed at this announcement and turned toward the boy in the bed next to him. "Sorry, Tom," he says. "I told you that our feast was gonna have to wait." 

The boy, Tom, has bandages across half his face and a fierce look in his remaining eye. He's closer to Sam's age and he smiles weakly at Jim. "Well, Kirk, we still have something to look forward too."

Jim laughs, but his voice is so rough it comes out more like a cough.

Sam grips his hand, and Jim doesn't pull away.

__ 

 

Jim gets quite a few visitors, all too thin children who look at Jim and Tom like the hold the stars. They call him Jimmy and tell him excitedly about the food they've eaten and the family members who have come to take care of them. Sometimes, an adult will come, one who Sam can tell is like him, trying to take care of someone who has been through something horrific, and they thank Tom and Jim for taking care of their child. 

Sam wonders exactly what happened on Tarsus, but he doesn't ask. If Jim wants him to know, then he will tell him. But, Jim is frustratingly cold towards him. It gets better as time goes on and Sam still stays. Jim starts making jokes will him and telling him little stories about the children he was with. Sam sits in the corner and does his course work (his teachers were very understanding and have assigned him work he can do from the hospital and still graduate), watches old movies on the holo screen with the boys, and (after getting the okay from the doctor) occasionally sneaks them in food that isn't bland and hospital replicated.

The first thing Jim ate during his hospital stay was a small cup of oatmeal that to Sam looks mildly disgusting. But Jim's hand shakes when he raises the first spoonful to his mouth and he cries after he swallows it.  

"I haven't... I didn't... I forgot..." Jim tries to say. 

Tom (who had his first bite of food yesterday) smiles at him and nods. "I know." 

Jim pretty much devours the remaining food, crying the whole time. He scrapes at the side of the cup until it's completely devoid of any leftover food. 

The next time Sam sneaks down to the cafeteria to get some food (he can't eat in front of the kids, not when their main diet still consist of nutrients through an IV and water mixed with glucose) he feels guilt curl into the pit of his stomach. He forces himself to eat the crust of his sandwich, even though he hates crust.

Two months into the hospital stay, they bring Sam and Jim into a conference room, where two federation officers are sitting with a recorder and a padd. 

"James Kirk?" One of them asks. Her long hair is pulled back into a harsh bun, accentuating her sharp features. 

"That's me," Jim says, and he sounds nonchalant but Sam can feel his anxiety.

The officer next to the woman marks something down on his padd.

"I am Commander Byrds and this is  Lieutenant Garceffian," The woman says, gesturing toward herself and the officer next to her. "According to the other survivors, you saw Governor Kodos' face. Is this true?" 

Jim's face hardens at the mention of the name. "Yes," he answers.

Lt. Garceffian pushes a padd with a picture of a mugshot of a man towards Jim.

"Is this Kodos?" Byrds asks.

"Yes," Jim says, voice sure and cold. 

Bryds nods. "We caught him hiding on Barisa Prime, two days ago. We want this man to go down for his crimes, Jim. And we need your help. We need to you testify."

"Hold on," Sam interrupts. "Isn't there anyone older who could testify? My brother has been through a lot and I do want him to have his every word scrutinized by some lawyer playing Devil's advocate."

Jim glares at him with his 'I can take care of myself look' but it melts into grateful and Jim looks down to stare at the table instead of Sam. 

"There are only nine survivors who saw Kodos' face, and Jim is one of the oldest," Byrds explains. "But we would never expect Jim to actually go to the courtroom. We wish to simply record his account of the events for a jury to listen to later."

Sam looks at Jim who is still studying the table. He squeezes Jim's still too boney shoulder.

"It's up to you, Jim."

He's quiet for a long moment, eyes closed. And then he takes a deep breath, and looks up, into Commander Byrds' eyes. "Okay."

Garceffian pushes the record button and Jim begins.

"I moved to the colony two years ago with my Aunt Millie and Uncle Gus. Aunt Millie was a programmer. She worked the computer programs that the scientists used. Uncle Gus took care of all the scientists kids and tutored them. At first, everything was good. Around the time I turned thirteen, Aunt Millie started letting me help her with the programming. That's when the fungus first appeared. A lot of the scientists were freaking out, and I got kind of nervous. I've never exactly been good at trusting people, and Aunt Millie told me I was being paranoid, but I knew something was up. So a couple months later, when we got called to the mandatory meeting, I didn't think anyone would actually miss me, so I snuck back into the lab instead. That's when I found the program that Kodos used to pick who would live and who would die. It was... Horrible. He was putting values on the lives of innocent people, of children. I ran back to the square, but it was too late, the killing had already started. Kodos was standing above them, while they screamed and tried to run and watched their loved ones die, and he was just, giving this speech. I can remember what he said: ' _The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV.'._  Uncle Gus... He was on the ground already, but he had shoved some of the kids towards the back. And Tom, he was the oldest, was trying to drag them away. I ran to him, and grabbed some of the kids, and we just booked it. It was a miracle we got away. There were fifteen of us, at the start. Tom and I were the oldest, all the other kids were nine and under. The square where Kodos... Where they died... Only holds about two thousand people, and the program said that there were four thousand slated for execution. We knew that there was no way we could let that happen again, so we went around warning as many people as possible before the guards came for them as well. Everyone fled into the woods. Probably more than half got away before the guards could take them, but Kodos wasn't about to just give up. There were guards constantly crawling through the forest, and they killed on sight. But we were small, so we evaded them easier than a lot of the adults. But, there was no food. All the plants were dead from the fungus, and the water from the river wasn't safe. We stole what we could, ate bark off trees, searched for springs coming up from the earth for water. But it wasn't enough. Some of the kids... They just couldn't handle it. I tried to keep them alive, but they got so sick. We had some scrapes with Kodos' men, and we lost some of them that way too. By the time Starfleet came, there were only nine of us left."

Jim stops and a shudder of pain runs through his body. Sam can feel tears pricking at his eyes, and he runs small circles across Jim's back.

Byrds hits the record button again, and the red light fades out.

__

 

Aurelan visits them a lot. She brings Jim paper copies of books she thinks he will like, and Jim is immediately enamoured with her. They spend hours and hours going through books and laughing together, and Sam sits in the corner with his biology work (he was never very good in English class) and watches them and smiles. She drags Sam out of the hospital with her when she visits and Jim laughs and asks them how their date went when they get back. Sam blushes every time. She tells Sam all the gossip going on back at campus and makes him laugh in a way no one else can. They comm almost every night. It still takes Sam almost three months to ask if they are actually together, and she smiles at him and says "duh." It's around that time Jim is finally released from the hospital. They head back to Mars, and Aurelan greets them when they get off the transport. She ruffles Jim's hair and they walk back to campus together and Sam can't help but think that things are finally getting better. He's so glad to get away from the sterile white of the hospital, and he knows Jim is even happier. The school put a second bed in Sam's room. Sam can't believe how understanding they've been about this whole situation, but he knows the whole galaxy was shocked by what happened on Tarsus, and that everyone is trying to help anyway they can. 

Graduation is in three months, and Sam already has full scholarships to colleges all around the solar system, but he's not sure what he should do. So much depends on Jim. (There's no way in hell Sam is going to leave him again.) He asks Jim what he wants and Jim just... stares at him. It happens sometimes, Jim will be fine, having a conversation, and suddenly he'll just drop out. Just stare with empty eyes. It scares the hell out of Sam. It happens less now then it did.

But then. But  _then_.

Jim is the one who answers the comm; Sam is in class. He comes back to find Jim sitting on the bed clutching his communicator in his hands and crying silently.

"Jim?" Sam asks, thinking this is just another Tarsus thing, but then Jim looks up at him with shock filled eyes.

"Starfleet commed. It's Mom." 

__

 

Surprisingly, Winona left everything to them. Sam had been sure it would go to Starfleet or Frank or anywhere else but to the kids that did nothing but keep holding her back. But it was theirs. The credits, the house, everything. Sam hadn't even known their mother had this much money. They hold a funeral, but Sam and Jim don't go. There are worried comms from Winona's old friends who don't understand, and Sam spends a lot of time making excuses. It might have been easier to just go, but Sam couldn't, and he doesn't think Jim would have been able to either. He knows that Jim is upset about Winona (Jim is the one that still calls her 'mom') but he also knows that Jim can't help but blame her for Tarsus. She was the one who sent him away, after all. (She was the one who looked right through him like he wasn't even there. The one who didn't come when Jim was stuck in a strange place with strange people and able to count all his ribs. The one who hadn't allowed him to have cake on his birthday. The one who turned a blind eye to all the bruises. The one who fucked Jim over- fucked them over- again and again and again.  Yet he still called her 'mom'). 

When Sam wakes up in the middle of the night to find Jim sniffling over a holo of her- one from before, where she is bright eyed and brilliant, standing next to Dad, hair blowing around her wildly and head thrown back with laughter- he keeps his mouth shut and pretends he's still asleep.

He doesn't have the heart to tell Jim the truth: the Winona he's crying for was gone long before now. She was gone the very moment Jim arrived.

__

 

Sam is very surprised when Jim finally sits him down and tells him what he wants. It is not what he expected at all.

"I want the house in Iowa," Jim says, carefully, with a tone that Sam recognizes, the one that means he has planned this to hell and back and there is no changing his mind now. 

Sam's mind sort of short circuits for a minute because why the hell would Jim ever want go back there? Nothing good ever happened in that God forsaken farm house.

"What?" Is the only word that Sam can form. 

"Well, it's ours now. Mom left it to us. We can kick Frank the hell out. And then you can go to whatever college you want and I can stay in Iowa and like finish high school or something," Jim explains, like this is perfectly reasonable and rational.

"Jim. I can't just leave you in Iowa. You're still a minor. And you're my brother."

"By the time you actually leave for college, I'll be sixteen," Jim continues, pretty much ignoring Sam. "I can be emancipated. Sam, I'm not just gonna sit around and rot, I promise. I'll do online classes. I just, I need somewhere to figure this out. I need to be myself again. Be a Kirk again. And it's crazy, but Iowa is the best place I can think to do it"

_I can't be a Kirk here._

It seems so long ago, that Sam was laying in a cornfield, saying those words. It's only been four years. Four years of property destruction, genocide, and being orphaned.  _God_.

"Okay," Sam says. "But it won't be like last time. This time we're staying in touch. And if anything happens you tell me, and I'll be right there."

__

 

Sam ends up at college on Earth, in Boston. He studies and studies and gets a doctorate in biochemistry. Aurelan goes to the college a few streets away and becomes a pediatrician. 

Jim finishes high school in one and a half years. He goes through girlfriends and boyfriends like he goes through tissues when he has a cold. He fixes up the farm house, picks up work at the ship yard and gets a few degrees in his spare time. Engineering. Quantum physics. Computer sciences. He spends a little too much time at the bar, but he's so much better than he should be, so Sam deals with that. 

Sam declines a job on Earth Colony II a slightly less well paying one in Chicago instead. He works on cures for new diseases and builds himself a reputation.

Aurelan gets pregnant four years into their relationship. They get married in a simple ceremony, before she starts to show. Jim is the best man, of course. 

Jim is 22 when he joins Starfleet, once again managing to shock Sam. But damn is he proud. He visits Jim in San Francisco, grinning at him in his cadet red. He meets Dr. McCoy, the man that Jim calls Bones, and he doesn't think that he's ever been so grateful for someone in his entire life. Bones bullies Jim into eating regularly and keeping his vaccines updated and is just his friend.

Sam can't remember the last time he saw Jim so open with anyone he met after Tarsus. 

In Starfleet, Jim thrives.

When Jim is 25 he saves the world, and for once, Sam is the only one who isn't surprised by Jim. 

He's there when Jim and his crew stagger off the ship, bone-weary and battle-hardened. The crew surrounds him, almost protectively. He's got bags under her eyes and tight muscles, a necklace of bruises, and for a second, Sam see's a fourteen year old boy in a hospital bed. Sam pushes through the crowd, calling his brother's name. Jim's eyes search the crowd, and when they land on him he moves past the gruff Vulcan standing next to him.

Sam wraps his arms around Jim and clutches him tight.

"Hey, Sam," Jim says, voice rough. 

"Hey,  Jim," Sam whispers back.

Jim let's his muscles relax, because no matter what, he and Sam are in this together.

**Author's Note:**

> Gonna be honest, didn't know what I was talking about for half of this, especially the medical stuff. Hey, it's the future. Anything is possible.


End file.
